


Rabbit Starvation

by Elquist



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Partners to Lovers, Road Trips, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:06:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elquist/pseuds/Elquist
Summary: They don’t have to talk about the details of it, don’t have to wonder who and what they are, with each other, for each other. There’s work. There’s Fargo. There are the streets of North America, the lakes, the caves and the endless fields in which they make people disappear. They do their job, they do it well, they do it quietly. Sometimes they fuck. All of this is them. It blurs together. None of it needs to be explained, analysed, philosophised about.
Relationships: Mr. Numbers/Mr. Wrench (Fargo)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 49





	Rabbit Starvation

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Kaninchenhunger](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5774059) by [Elquist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elquist/pseuds/Elquist). 



The heat gets to everybody: parents, children. The old, the young. Enemies and friends and lovers. Between June and September, when the great heat waves unload into thunderstorms every evening, people become careless, some of them downright reckless.

Somebody always dies, and in summer, it’s high season.

*

Wrench finds the lake on one of their scouting trips while Numbers walks up and down the dirt road, sleeves rolled over his elbows in the heat, trying to find a good place for one to three bodies that cannot be stumbled upon for at least a few weeks. When Wrench returns, clapping his hands from afar to get Numbers’ attention, he’s grinning like a child.

_(There’s a lake back there good water nobody around)_

„For the bodies?“

Wrench, impatient: _(No for you and me the heat is killing me)_

Numbers knows a thousand good reasons why they shouldn’t be doing that. It could cause some kind of stir, for starters. A passerby. Local youth, maybe. Then Wrench can’t even swim well, even if Numbers is confident he could save him from drowning if necessary. Besides, they are grown men, not teenagers or crazy rednecks, men who will kill a man later in the day, or maybe, if they get unlucky, two or three.

There really isn’t anyone around, just like Wrench said. The water is amazingly clear, the bottom covered in sandy gravel. Numbers sees fish flitting below the surface. Tiny insects buzz just above the glistening surface, in sluggish grey swarms. The bank is covered with scratchy undergrowth and hard moss lichen. There are even some sun-hot rocks from which they can jump.

 _(Surely radioactive)_ , Numbers sighs as they strip.

Wrench moves behind him. Numbers barely manages to shout before he grabs him around the waist and hurls him into the water.

 _(Fuck you you childish fucking idiot!)_ , he gestures angrily in Wrench’s direction once he’s back on the surface, soaking wet and shocked from the water, cold enough to makes his skin burn. Wrench stands over him on the rocks, naked except for his boxers, and laughs so hard that he’s shaking from it, pressed, whistling sounds escaping his chest. Then he takes off his boxers and jumps into the water with Numbers.

They complete their third mission of this deadly summer five hours without any significant complications, but when they finally get rid of the body, in a shallow grave in an abandoned field, they are both bathed in sweat from head to toe, smeared with dirt, itching all over from mosquito bites. Wrench, who has a good visual memory, finds the way a second time. This time they bathe quickly and without fooling around. A thunderstorm piles up in the west and covers the sky with a dark, menacingly vibrating grey. It follows them for twenty miles to the motel. As they get out of the car, a lukewarm wind is blowing. It smells of electricity. Shortly afterwards the rain starts.

*

Wrench fingers him on the bed and jerks him off with the other hand. Because his hands are fairly busy, they don’t talk. Numbers is sweating. The room is badly air-conditioned and filled with a stale warmth that won’t move, the bed creaks and groans even without them fucking on it. Wrench has taken off his jacket, Numbers only his pants, and he has also unbuttoned his shirt so Wrench can touch his chest, too. There’s the familiar, hot pulsation in his stomach and crotch drawing him towards orgasm. His left naked leg lies in Wrench’s crooked arm. They both stink of the lake. The rain drums down on the thin roof of the motel.

When he feels himself coming, Numbers wraps his right leg around Wrench’s back and grabs his shoulders so tightly that his hands turn white. Wrench leans over him, big and heavy, presses his mouth against Number’s neck to feel his moans vibrate there, digs his thick hot fingers, slippery with lube, into him, presses his teeth into the taut pale skin of his throat while Numbers comes shuddering and moaning over Wrench’s fist and his own trembling stomach.

For half a minute they both just gasp for air. Outside, the storm roars. Then Numbers releases a weak hand from the headboard and taps Wrench’s upper arm. His head spins. His limbs are made of lead, wrung out from his orgasm, from digging in the sandy, dry earth earlier. His tinnitus is back and he’s getting a headache from the bad air conditioning. Wrench looks down on him, his face stupidly serious as always when they have sex.

_(Get your fingers out of my ass)_

Wrench pats his thigh with a grin. He releases his fingers and rubs Numbers wet swollen hole with his thumb. Numbers moans unwillingly, but ready to have his mind changed. Wrench removes his hands from between his legs, gets up, walks into the bathroom and washes his hands.

 _(What about you?)_ , Numbers asks with a lazy gesture as he returns. Wrench picks up his jacket and hangs it behind the door. Numbers watches him as he sets about unpacking their bags. _(You have)_ He signs for _erection_ but makes it crude.

Wrench takes out their guns and puts them on the bed for cleaning. He puts his hand to his ear and raises his eyebrows, which means _Call Fargo_. Somewhere outside, lightning strikes and illuminates the shabby room through the curtains. Wrench reacts to the light, to the vibration in the floor. Numbers sits up. _(I don’t give a fuck if your balls fall off)_ Against his chin, he adds: _(Faggot)_ He gets up and winces, annoyed by the sticky sensation of lube in his ass and on his thighs, and leaves to take a shower, to wash that off, the stink of lake. When he comes out of the bathroom ten minutes later, Wrench gets up from bed, grabs him under the arms and kisses him. Numbers leans against the door frame and willingly opens to him. Wrench has always been good with his mouth. Of all people, it was him who taught Numbers how to properly kiss, Wrench, who lost his virginity to him and has barely fucked anyone other than him.

 _(Now?)_ , Numbers asks as Wrench releases him a little. Wrench grabs his face with big warm hands and strokes his beard with his thumbs.

_(No)_

_(That’s unhealthy)_

Wrench shrugs, and Numbers sighs and lets him kiss him for a while before calling Fargo. He’s used to it. Wrench sometimes doesn’t fuck him for two weeks. _(My urges aren’t that strong)_ But he jerks him off, and when they find the time and mood, he fingers him. Once he slid a silencer inside him and then had a good hard laugh about how fast and violently Numbers came, weird hacked sounds at the back of his throat Numbers has grown to love, and he had grabbed him and kissed him to shut him up and bit him and in the end Wrench had fucked him after all.

The first time it had happened, they had been 16. Drunk, of course. Just a handjob. Numbers never counted it, except hypocritically when it comes to Wrench’s virginity. The second time six years later it’s no handjob, and they’re not drunk either. It’s after a kill, though not their first one by a few now, and Wrench bleeds so badly from a bullet graze on his upper arm that they have to stop to wrap a pillowcase around his arm in the middle of it. Third time a year later, and then it settles into routine. It’s like in a bad romance where the woman belatedly realises that all this time, she was meant to be with the sensitive asshole she pushed around on the playground, the meek guy who wrote her sweet love letters in elementary school and offered her a shoulder to cry on about her jerk of a jock boyfriend in high school.

They don’t have to talk about the details of it, don’t have to wonder who and what they are, with each other, for each other. There’s work. There’s Fargo. There are the streets of North America, the lakes, the caves and the endless fields in which they make people disappear. They do their job, they do it well, they do it quietly. Sometimes they fuck. All of this is them. It blurs together. None of it needs to be explained, analysed, philosophised about.

Of course Moses knows, with a probability bordering on certainty, because he has always been able to read them, but he has also always loved them in his own way, so Moses doesn’t care which means Fargo doesn’t either.

The storm is slowly passing. The air has cooled off. Wrench slips out onto the porch and sits in the dark for a while, shirt up over his arms, eyes closed. He doesn’t come back in until Numbers has gone to sleep. He gets into bed with him. The mattress pushes in under his weight. Wrench puts a heavy arm over Numbers’ side. They’re both sweating again, but they’ve turned off the air conditioning. There are mosquitoes in the room, and of course, only Numbers is bothered by them.

The next morning they drive past a field that is black and burnt. Wrench leans out the window.

_(Lightning strike)_

Numbers nods. Wrench rolls up the window.

*

In South Dakota in August, when it’s still warm enough for them to drive and sleep with the windows open but the worst heat waves have passed, Wrench kills another man who got in Fargo’s way one time too often with a hunting knife. They usually use firearms, loud but fast and effective. Knives miss, knives require strength, knives mean close combat, mean potential injury.

They split up. Numbers talks to the man, puts his finger to his mouth every half minute so they can keep the oblivious apprentice back in the workshop out of it. Wrench stands behind their target. After everything that needed to be said is said, Wrench stabs him in the back through his sweaty shirt. The man is dead after two seconds, and he has no opportunity left to make noise above a gurgle.

 _(He could have screamed)_ , Numbers says. Very strongly, because it’s the truth, but also half-heartedly, because fuck, if he isn’t turned on. Wrench shrugs like he knows this both.

They put the body in a tarp, wrap it up and carry it to the car without anyone seeing them. Back in the workshop the apprentice, headphones still on, uses the hood of the car as a drum. Signs along to whatever pop music shit kids listen to today all crooked. Good for him.

Wrench takes the driver seat. Pulls off his gloves, which have some inconspicuous bloodstains on them. Numbers deliberately avoids looking in his direction.

*

As Numbers gets down on his knees in front of Wrench, he’s already getting hard, even though the adrenaline didn’t survive their trip. Wrench sits back in the shabby armchair by the door, gun placed on the armrest, and takes off his gloves, which he has put on again for the temporary disposal of the body. He carefully puts them aside and spreads his legs so Numbers can settle between them. The armchair smells of old upholstery and dust and Wrench just smells like exertion and the dumb leather jacket. Numbers misses the hot gun stink on him. He leans forward as soon as Wrench has opened his pants and pulled out his erection, without Wrench having to ask or pull him in. He never has to. For two or three minutes Wrench lets him do his thing: tongue, teeth, lips, hands. Numbers is good at this, he’s confident, even though he may not be able to keep up with Wrench. Wrench is hard, and Numbers has trouble getting his thick, heavy dick all the way into his mouth, but Wrench doesn’t groan, doesn’t sigh, doesn’t break a sweat, doesn’t twitch his legs. He just leans back in the chair, elbows supported on the armrests, tilts his head back until his neck cracks, making Numbers blink angrily, and then relaxes as if Numbers was massaging his back instead of blowing him. As Numbers has to catch his breath for the third time, his tongue now numb, his mouth filled with saliva and sour taste, increasingly frustrated, Wrench finally sits up, puts both broad hands on his neck and pushes his head forward.

Numbers knows what’s happening, yet still makes an involuntary, surprised sound. He tries to relax and exhale through his nose as Wrench’s erection slides deeper into his mouth and a bit into his throat, closing it up. The tip of his nose touches Wrenchs pubic hair. His jaws begin to burn and throb, his eyes water. Saliva drips out of his mouth. He is rock hard in his pants and it hurts to kneel.

Wrench strokes his left eyelid, brushes away the tears. Numbers sighs weakly and choked-up and leans forward a little more. His chest stings. Wrench rubs across his stretched cheek, then presses his thumb into the corner of his mouth, slides his warm index finger against his own dick, pulls at Numbers’ cheek so he has to open his mouth, impossibly, even wider. Something cracks behind his ear. Wrench removes his left hand from Numbers’ neck and places it against Numbers’ throat. Pain, shortness of breath and arousal settle into one satisfying line. It’s getting Numbers close. He moans and squeezes his eyes shut so tight that tears drip from his cheeks. It’s like he’s in his own body but also stepping out of it a little, a single hot, wild throb. He’s so tense he’s close to cramping.

Wrench takes his hand from his throat and snaps his fingers in front of his face. Numbers opens his eyes. He stares up at Wrench through teary eyes. Wrench looks back. His eyes are very dark. There is a hint of red on his cheeks, as if he has entered a warm room from a heavy snowstorm. He stops touching Numbers and raises his hands and uses the same slow, calm, clear gestures he had to speak with when Numbers’ still fought with Wrench’s bastardised version of ASL, their first ten years they spent together: _(I will fuck you.)_

Numbers moans around the dick in his mouth without even intending to. Wrench lifts his hips a little bit. His mouth twitches. He stretches his legs and puts his free hand, warm and rough, against Numbers’ forehead. He pushes his head back, bit by bit, while he holds his mouth open with his finger. His wet dick slides out of Numbers’ mouth until only the head rests on Numbers’ front teeth and lower lip and the tip of his tongue. Numbers pants through his mouth and nose. Wrench pulls his lip down and Numbers involuntarily moves forward because spit drips from his mouth. Wrench taps against his chin so he looks up.

_(Bed.)_

Numbers nods. His head is spinning. A touch to his cheek, reminding him to take deep breaths. He nods again. Usually, he’d take his sweet time to make Wrench regret speaking to him like that, making him feel like a horny idiot. His mouth is too wet, he has to swallow several times and wipe his face. His tongue and throat feel slimy. He leans up and flinches because his knees are stiff from the hard carpet. They crack when he stands up. Wrench reads his face right.

_(Old man)_

Numbers raises a very weak middle finger and starts undoing his pants. Wrench watches him take them off and drop them to the floor. Then he gets up and stands behind Numbers, who is fiddling with his shirt. He reaches around his chest, puts one hand on his and pulls his boxers into the hollow of his knee with the other. Then he shoves him in the back so Numbers loses his balance and falls, cursing, across the bed. He wants to turn around to tell Wrench that he could have broken his dick, but Wrench already grabs him by the hips and holds him down. Numbers props an arm under himself so he can breathe better. His head floats. His heart is pounding. Wrench behind him spits in his hand. Numbers gives him another over-the-shoulder middle finger, but as Wrench spreads him open with one hand, he lifts himself up to him. Wrench roughly presses the index finger he used to open his mouth into him, and Numbers presses his face into the blanket and moans that his vocal cords burn. The mattress sinks in as Wrench climbs onto the bed and positions himself between his legs. A hand on his shoulder: _(Okay?)_

Numbers can’t sign back. He nods.

Wrench is still wet from the blowjob, but it’s not enough. It’s a different pain from choking on a dick and almost dislocating his jaw. It feels like a wound. It’s great. It’s a miracle he hasn’t come yet, neither of them. Wrench is half on top of him, the position is awkward. Numbers pants and moans into the blanket and his sweaty fist. Laughs a little. Wrench wraps one arm around him, once he’s been thrusting into him for a while and can finally slide all the way into him, pulls him up a bit and presses him on his cock until Numbers howls. Fuck, he’s bathed in sweat. His mouth still burns. Wrench holds him down tightly.

 _(L-o-u-d)_ , he tells with one hand. He leans forward and puts his head against Numbers’ shoulder blades, hard and tense under his sweaty shirt. He fucks up into him. Numbers moans for him so he can feel it. He doesn’t give a shit about possible next door neighbours right now.

Wrench grunts and groans, muffled. Then he pulls Numbers roughly to his knees, pushes them apart, waits until Numbers gets his arms under him and can support himself. His shirt hangs half open around his hips and is surely ruined at the hem, although Wrench keeps pushing it up with one hand. He doesn’t jerk Numbers off, and Numbers doesn’t touch himself either. He likes coming like this.

Wrench fucks him with force, unnecessarily hard, like they sometimes do when, in Wrench’s opinion, Numbers screwed up a job, when Numbers kills instead of Wrench and they have to make up for something, when they squabble on the way or over dinner and Numbers keeps pushing and pushing him.

Numbers has had other partners for the last twenty years, and while he likes it rough, Wrench is the only one who does it right. Maybe because it’s rare that he can get him to do it at all. Maybe it’s because he can’t fool Wrench, Wrench whom he has known since he first threw fists on behalf of him at the age of ten. He had ended up in the home’s infirmary with a broken arm and later with added welts on his back, first taking a beating and then the sisters’ punishment, all for the dumb tall weirdo kid speaking caveman with his hands and feet he wasn’t even friends with, had no solid reason to defend against bullies that could take them both easily.

Wrench pushes his hand into his hair, grabs it and yanks his head back so hard that Numbers’ neck gives a little crunch. Numbers comes with a shout, lifts himself up towards him, and Wrench reaches between his legs with his other hand and roughly kneads his dick. Numbers puts his trembling hand on Wrench’s while he fucks him through orgasm. He’s seeing stars. His scalp burns because Wrench pulls so hard. He hears himself loudly in the room: „Fuck! Fuck!“

Wrench keeps fucking him until he comes too, Numbers weak and drained under him, by now pleasantly numb. Wrench makes his choked sounds as always when he comes, throaty, heavy moans that cover Numbers’ body with goosebumps. He still holds Numbers by his hair, but he rubs the back of his head with his palm. He holds him still until he can’t come anymore and goes limp inside him. Then he lays him down on the bed, turns him around, leans heavily over him. Numbers groans.

Wrench’s face is red and sweaty, his eyelids heavy and sticky, and even though his expression is serious, his face is full of a great, wild tenderness. He raises one hand to Numbers’ face. It’s not the one he fingered him with, but Numbers still turns his head away. Wrench smoothes his hair with his fingers.

„You ruined it,“ Numbers says hoarsely.

Wrench bends down and kisses him. Numbers pushes him away, his limbs weak, and gets off the bed. He hasn’t even half made it to the bathroom when the phone rings. He comes back and picks it up. He lets Wrench, who has lazily stretched out on the bed, read his lips while he talks. When he’s finished, Wrench says: _(I’m hungry order food)_

Numbers disappears into the bathroom, showers extensively and combs his damp hair over the sink. Wrench has turned on the TV. He’s watching a documentary about a national park. Numbers orders for both of them. It’s time for them to eat something decent somewhere instead of constant takeout. The job in southern Nebraska is in three days and on call, so they will be on their way tomorrow and find a place to stay and hopefully something proper to eat near the drop-off point.

For dinner, Wrench finds a bad B-action movie on one of the back channels, which is about half porn. There are no subtitles, so Numbers tells Wrench the most important stuff, even though it’s pretty self-explanatory, consisting mainly of sports cars, explosions and tits.

 _(It’s very profound)_ , he explains to Wrench, holding a slice of pizza in his mouth, while the sweaty, oil-stained hero rips open the blouse of the blonde he has got sprawled out all sexily on the car hood. _(It’s criticism of c-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-s-m, of the exploitation of the working class)_

Wrench signals him to shut up and shows him how to sign _capitalism_. On the screen, the blonde’s delicate hand claws into the hero’s tanned back. Her moans are pretty off-putting.

At three in the night they get dressed, pick up the body and dispose of it. Then they drive back and go to sleep. Numbers sleeps with his leg draped over Wrench’s, the one which will be his bad one in a few days.

*

Their mission in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, fields, flat hills, farmers with big hats, goes wrong at the last minute when a stray bullet hits Numbers in the thigh. He stumbles and drops to his injured knee, pulls up his gun and shoots the man running towards him and Wrench. A cloud of blood and brain sprays from his head. Numbers crawls behind the parked pickup truck and waves Wrench away, his face contorted in pain. Wrench, blood boiling, leaves his cover to get the last two men. He has to chase one of them into the barn, where he tries to barricade himself in. Wrench knocks him down with six shots. After that, nothing moves in the square. Cirrus glide across the sky. In the nearby cornfield, the tips of the plants are moving in the breeze.

Numbers leans against the back of one of the pickups and uses both hands to squeeze his thigh. From a distance Wrench can see the bright red of his fingers. He has put his gun down beside him. He is pale but not ashen, his trouser leg bloody but not much.

 _Okay_ , he shapes with his lips instead of taking his hands off his leg, _okay_. Then, his face twisted with rage, not to Wrench, but to the redneck who has managed to land a lucky shot: _Fuck!_

Wrench pulls his belt out of his pants, kneels next to Numbers, wraps it around Numbers’ thigh over his white hands and tightens it until Numbers flinches, and pulls harder until Numbers throws his head back and slams it hard against the back of the pickup. Wrench shakes him so he looks at him.

_(A-r-t-e-r-y?)_

Numbers, trembling with pain and anger: _(No bullet stuck everyone dead?)_

Wrench nods, wraps the belt tighter again and helps Numbers to his feet. Numbers holds the belt in place and limps back to their car, clinging to Wrench, wincing. He can still put weight on his left foot, which is good, but he leaves a trail of bright drops of blood on the hardened farm soil. Which is bad.

Numbers grabs Wrench’s arm as soon as he’s in the car. _(Briefcase)_

_(Put it where?)_

He shows it to Wrench by hand. Wrench goes to retrieve the briefcase, opens it, checks the contents, scans the lining, goes through the bundles quickly once, knowing that he needs more time to find a transmitter. He closes the briefcase, carries it back to the car and sets it on Numbers’ uninjured knee.

_(Homework)_

Numbers is obviously still feeling well enough to roll his eyes. A thin layer of sweat glistens on his forehead. He strongly smells of blood. His hands leave marks on the briefcase, then the bank notes, but Fargo won’t mind.

Wrench starts the car. Then he reaches over, takes Numbers’ arm. _(Pain?)_

Numbers, his hands trembling with added rage, now: _(Drive!)_

So he takes the long, sandy road leading away from the abandoned barn, along the cornfield, towards another, where finally an asphalt road crosses theirs. Next to him, Numbers systematically and one-handedly checks the contents of the briefcase, his other hand holding the belt tight around his leg. He throws the bundles into a supermarket plastic bag he takes from the back seat.

Maywood, the first sign they come across says. Wrench drives around the little town. Numbers throws the empty briefcase out the window near a billboard advertising for a lawyer of the shady variety. His pant leg is now bloodied after all. He’s shaking from the pain.

_(Drive)_

So Wrench drives.

*

About ten miles further on they find a suitable motel in the middle of the grassland. The clouds have thickened, but the sun is still shining. The day has taken on a ghostly greyish-yellow, bright colour. The parking lot is barely occupied, the long porch in front of the apartments empty except for a woman walking her tiny old dog and admiring the strange faded light of the afternoon.

Numbers has his eyes closed and does not open them when Wrench stops. Wrench reaches over and squeezes his knee, pats it until Numbers looks at him, slow with pain.

_(Five minutes. Try not to die.)_

Numbers points at Wrench’s jacket. When he grabbed him by the arm earlier to ask him if he had the suitcase, he had left a bloody, now dried-up mark on the leather. Wrench nods and takes the jacket off. The woman and her dog have reached the grassy area surrounding the motel and slowly disappear out of sight.

Usually this is Numbers’ job. Wrench cleans the blood from his hands with a bottle of water from the car and then walks into the reception area: wooden paneling, a framed picture of Reagan next to a cork pinboard peppered with photographs of local celebrities and landmarks. On a piece of paper, Wrench writes what he needs from the man behind the reception desk. The man reads it aloud to himself and looks up at Wrench.

 _Are you deaf?_ he sees him ask.

Wrench points to his lips and nods, forcing patience. The man stares at him in wonder, then remembers that he has a customer in front of him. Three minutes later Wrench is back at the car, a key in his hand. The woman approaches him with her dog and smiles at him. He nods at her without really seeing her.

Numbers has wrapped the plastic bag with the money in Wrench’s jacket while he was away. It’s difficult with his leg, but it turns out the blood has clotted and blocked the wound. No one sees Numbers with his bloodstained pant leg, and when Wrench walks back to the car again to get their bags, there are perhaps three or four spots on the asphalt, which might as well be oil that has dripped from a car.

The room he has rented for three days is tiny and reeks strongly of cigarettes. There is an idyllic farm scene hanging over the bed, corn fields, long white fences. Numbers has already closed the dusty curtains. Wrench spreads out one of the plastic tarps they use for clean kills or the removal of less clean ones over the bed, while Numbers carefully unbuckles his belt and takes off his pants. He has to lean against the closet to not fall over. His leg is grey from bleeding. The wound is barely the size of a thumbnail, swollen black with blood. A large, oval bruise covers Numbers’ thigh and touches the kneecap at the bottom. He has goosebumps that won’t go away.

It’s not a good wound, but after a quarter of an hour Wrench, using long tweezers, has removed the intact bullet from Numbers’ thigh, covered the wound with a compress and wrapped it in a towel. Numbers is knocked out from the pain and the combination of painkillers and local anaesthetic, but still awake. His hand signals are sluggish and clumsy.

_(Should we move the bodies?)_

_(No. Just the money.)_ The bloody bag sits on the tarp next to Numbers’ healthy leg.

_(I’ll call F-a-r-g-o)_

Wrench shakes his head. _(Tomorrow enough)_

Numbers tries to lie down a little more comfortably and grimaces. _(Fucking tarp)_

_(Uncomfortable?)_

_(It’s loud)_ Then, clarifying, when Wrench raises his brows: _(It rustles and crinkles when I move. Annoying)_

Instead of making fun of him for that, Wrench goes into the bathroom once more to wet the towel he used to wash the wound, and wipes the dried blood from Numbers’ hands and leg, where it has run down to the calf in two thin rivulets. Then he carefully helps him off the tarp and onto a clean towel and covers him with the blanket. Numbers watches him with heavy eyes as he walks around the room, cleans up the first-aid kit they’ve expanded with a few useful instruments, puts it away, wipes and folds the tarp and washes the blood out of the towel. The yellow light behind the curtains intensifies yet again. The sky is almost glowing. Wrench watches the sun go down through the gap between the curtains, a flickering orange-red ball over the farmland.

When he closes the curtains, Numbers has fallen asleep.

*

Late in the evening Numbers gets a fever. In front of the motel, cars pull into the parking lot twice, sometimes footsteps vibrate over the porch, none of it worrying Wrench. No cops, nothing.

Wrench sits on the free side of the bed most of the time and reads a tattered small-format edition of _The Jewel of Paris_ by Edgar Wallace. Numbers lies still for a long time before he starts throwing himself around. His leg bleeds only slightly. Clear wound fluid seals the bullet hole. But the skin tightens and gets warmer, and the wound is beginning to redden. Numbers mumbles and grunts half asleep and pushes Wrench’s hand away. He has sweated through his underwear. The sheet sticks to his naked arms and legs.

Wrench makes Numbers’ cold compresses out of a hotel sheet cut into strips, much like the ones the sisters used to make for them in the home, their old towels like sandpaper. He taps gently on Numbers’ chest until Numbers looks at him. His eyes are blood-red.

_(In pain?)_

_Okay_ , Numbers says. Then in ASL: _(Window opens?)_

_(Yeah. Sleep.)_

Numbers nods softly. Wrench carefully helps him lift his head, flips his pillow over so the cool side is up, goes to the window and opens it a little bit so that cool night air can flow in.

At half past eleven he finishes the book. He changes Numbers’ compresses, covers him up again and starts reading _Angels and Demons_ , which will take him a little longer to read. When he gets too tired, he closes the window, puts the book away and feels Numbers’ forehead. It’s hot, but it’s not burning up yet. He lies down close to Numbers so that if he moves too much he will wake him. He can feel Numbers’ shallow breaths when he touches him.

That night, Numbers wakes him up only once, when he tries to get up and almost falls out of bed. Wrench sits up and holds him down. He feels Numbers moan and cry in pain. His leg is wet and hot. Wrench pulls him back onto the sweaty towel he spread on his side of the bed and fetches him some more painkillers and a wet cold cloth for his forehead. It takes almost half an hour for Numbers to calm down. At one point a light glides along the outside of the window, shines through the curtains, touches the old closet, the foot end of the bed.

Wrench looks at Numbers, whose tension gradually loosens, in the semi-darkness. Numbers’ eyes close. His breaths come deeper, healthier. Wrench leans towards him and presses his mouth against the tattoo on Numbers’ sternum. He stinks of fever, of sweat. He doesn’t move. As Wrench turns back to his side, Numbers raises a limp hand and puts it on his arm, leaving it there while he falls asleep.

*

In the morning, Numbers is lucid enough to demand the phone. After a stressful minute, he hangs it up again, turns around and has settled back into a feverish sleep before Wrench can force the bottle of water he refilled under the tap on him.

The fever rises and falls and rises for two more days, but the antibiotics beat the inflammation. Wrench helps Numbers, who always turns him away at the door, to the toilet and shower, his leg covered with plastic wrap to protect the wound. They have a kettle in the room, so he cooks him cups of soup and coffee. He sorts the money into a clean bag. He goes outside as little as possible. He nods once more to the woman with the tiny old dog. He buys two newspapers. When there’s nothing in them, a cane. Day three, they disappear from Nebraska.

*

Numbers’ leg heals slowly, but the infection doesn’t return. He spends three weeks having to use the cane Wrench miraculously managed to dig up in a Nevada pharmacy.

It’s getting colder. September is coming to an end. It’s too early for snow. In the small towns they pass through, there are fall festivals and harvest parades and announcements of turkey trots.

They only have one job during this time. Fargo is lenient, taking a little time off with a shot leg not asking too much with their rate of success. Wrench takes out the South Dakota businesswoman on his own, much to Numbers’ dismay.

_(You’re gonna run in front of a car)_

_(You got shot, not me)_

Numbers throws up his hands, falls back into the passenger seat angrily. Their arguments will never get in the way of a job. Neither one of them is that stupid.

Wrench gets the job done. He lets Numbers help move the body into the trunk, and he lets him walk with him into the woods. While Wrench digs, now that it’s much cooler than three weeks ago in the corn, he leans against a nearby tree, wrapped in his coat, and rests his leg. He has left his cane in the car. Now he’s pale and sweaty. Wrench finishes the job alone. Afterwards he stands over the fresh grave for a while. Rests. He’s sweating too, but not out of pain like Numbers. It’s already dawning. It smells of freshly dug earth, of old leaves.

After ten minutes, Wrench straightens up, folds the spade and walks over to Numbers. As he leans over to him, Numbers’ face twists up. For a brief moment, Wrench is convinced he is actually going to hit him. He violently turns away from Wrench and takes a few limping steps. Wrench walks behind him, and after thirty metres Numbers, with his head lowered, allows him to put his arm around his back and supports him back to the car.

They ride in silence. Numbers has stretched his leg as far as it will go into the footwell and looks out the window. It’s dark when they get to the motel, last before Fargo the next day. Quiet for a little while longer. The bed is sagging in the middle, but it will carry two men. Another state, same dusty curtains, same smell in the sheets and walls.

_(You want to shower first?)_

Numbers shakes his head. He’s got his hand laid loosely on his thigh, as if he doesn’t want to massage it in front of Wrench even though it hurts.

 _(Together?)_ , Wrench asks.

Numbers shakes his head again. Wrench stands there for a moment, then he unlocks the door and walks out. He feels Numbers’ surprised stare in his back. He walks to the car, unlocks it, gets the cane from the back seat. He sees his breath as a white haze in front of his mouth. It doesn’t feel like September. Their room is the only one still lit in yellow. Behind two others, he can see TVs running. He walks back inside. Leans the cane to the bed next to Numbers. Numbers says something, but Wrench has turned away, into the bathroom. He undresses and gets under the shower and turns the water hot, but it comes out cold first, and he shakes and grinds his teeth in frustration.

When he comes out of the bathroom with clean teeth and hands still reddened from digging in the woods, Numbers is cleaning his gun. The kit is open beside him on the bed. He doesn’t look up when Wrench walks back into the room. He can’t see the cane anymore. Maybe Numbers put it under the bed. Put it in the closet.

He snaps his fingers. Numbers’ shoulders drop a little. Then he looks up. His expression stings furiously: tired, irritated.

 _(Vain)_ , Wrench gestures, now angry himself again, _(dangerous for you and me for both of us)_

Numbers angrily raises his shoulders.

_(What’s wrong with you? Not the first time we’ve been hurt. Not your first scar. I don’t know what your problem is but it’s over now!)_

Numbers packs the kit, the gun. When he gets up to put them both away, his knee buckles. Wrench takes a step forward and grabs his arms, but Numbers keeps his balance himself. He roughly pushes him away. Wrench allows him to slip past him, to put the gun in his bag. Numbers straightens up and limps past him again, towards the bathroom. Wrench walks around him and blocks his path.

 _Stop it_ , he sees Numbers saying.

_(Talk to me)_

Numbers tries to move, but Wrench pushes him back to the bed.

 _W-e-s_ , Numbers spells, rough and quick. His face is wild. This time Wrench lets him go. They stare at each other. Numbers’ eyes are glassy. Then he pushes Wrench’s arm aside and walks past him into the bathroom. He slams the door so hard that Wrench feels the bang vibrate through the walls.

He lies on the bed while Numbers takes a shower. There’s a stain on the ceiling that looks like bleached mold. Almost every room in the home looked like that. Something’s rumbling outside. If he puts his palm on the wall above the bed frame, he’s bound to feel the pipes underneath.

Numbers comes out wrapped in a towel. He puts on clean clothes, dries his hair, walks around the room until his leg and the fact that there’s nothing to do force him onto the bed. If there were two, he wouldn’t be sleeping next to him tonight.

 _Fuck that_ , Wrench thinks. Sits up. Leans over Numbers and takes his hands. Numbers rises up angrily, and Wrench bends down and presses a kiss to his lips. Numbers goes quiet.

Again they look at each other. Then, as Numbers’ anger and offence seem about to gain the upper hand again, Wrench kneels over him, pulls the blanket aside a little. Exposes the dark spot in Numbers’ pale thigh, the narrow, scarred mess where he has enlarged the wound with a scalpel to extract the bullet. Numbers lies still, waiting, tense, but not stopping him. Wrench puts his hand in the hollow of his knee where the skin is too warm and carefully bends his leg a little. Kisses the scar amidst the reddish swelling Numbers got when they carried the Lincoln businesswoman into the forest.

Numbers’ left hand is suddenly in his hair, but he does not push him away again. As Wrench looks up at him, he realises that Numbers is crying.

_(???)_

Numbers looks down at him, his leg in Wrench’s hands, his face pale and wet. He shrugs his shoulders: _I don’t know._

Maybe: _It’s a tragedy that you can’t just suck my dick but have to do this gay shit first._

Numbers: _(What are we?)_ Then himself, with a tear-stained face: _(???)_

Wrench sits up, leans over him and kisses him. Numbers holds his face with both hands. His eyes are bloodshot. Wrench gets up, brings him a painkiller and water and doesn’t let him refuse. They kiss, and then they make love.

*

A long time later Wrench says: _(Maybe …)_ He thinks it over. He has to talk against his sternum and throat for Numbers, who has put his head on Wrench’s upper arm, to see him. _(We’re getting old. A house in the countryside. A farm.)_ He gives Numbers a chance to laugh, but Numbers just watches his hands. _(Peace and quiet, and no guns.)_

Numbers, lazy and, maybe, happy: _(Okay.)_

*

One hundred and fifty miles from Fargo, early snow falls. Within an hour, the ground is covered in it, and it’s still falling. It’s harmless snow, soft, quiet.

Wrench drives that night, not because Numbers is in no condition to, but because he enjoys it. Numbers dozes in the passenger seat. The road slides along. The night is bright with fresh, untouched snow: no other cars, no snowplows, no pedestrians. Once Wrench’s headlights fall upon a deer. It startles, turns around and runs onto a field that is a smooth white blanket in the darkness.

At a railroad crossing he stops in front of the lowered barriers. The car is still running. Numbers only wakes up when the engine dies. His breath fogs up the window, but this time there is no blood on the seat and on his leg and shoe.

From the left, Wrench sees the train coming, a steady beam of light. He rubs his face and takes a swig from the thermos cup in front of the glove box and lets his shoulders pop. The night, the wide, wide nothing. A small car. A silent train. Numbers moves in his sleep. The train comes closer. Its headlights catch them. Wrench can feel the hum of the gigantic train engine. The small car engine through the steering wheel. The train swirls up powdered snow like ground fog. The barrier shakes in its draft. The rails vibrate and sing. A thousand tons of rolling steel. Numbers turns his head a little, settles down again. His eyelids flutter. His lips move. The train must be loud, he must hear it in his sleep.

Twelve cars, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Then it’s over. The place where it was is empty again. The barriers lift. Wrench drives on.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fanfiction 4 years ago and originally in German. This is the translation. If you understand German well enough, be sure to check out the original, too! Although my writing has evolved quite a little since then, I’m still really loving this text, and I changed very, very little while translating. I’m extending the liberties I took with writing ASL out a little further, and, yes, rabbit starvation is still neither a paradox nor a parable. But other than that, it fits like a glove.


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